ENC Reveals New Plan for Advising Schedule

Ed Wichrowski, ENC’s Registrar, says, “We have finally switched over completely from MyENC and are using Colleague, which encompasses our Portal, Webadvisor, and Student Planning programs.”

Wichrowski believes that the new features provided by Colleague will enhance the students’ experience of registering for classes by giving students more control over their schedules than MyENC had provided.

He says, “This new program allows for students to take ownership of putting together their schedules instead of waiting for an advisor to propose the courses. They can work out a tentative schedule in Student Planning for their entire college career.”

Wichrowski explains that the switch from creating schedules for both semesters during the spring advising day to creating an academic schedule one semester at a time came from a campus-wide discussion between administrative staff and the faculty leaders at ENC. The goal was to meet all needs of the campus offices.

“Our previous experiences in scheduling for the entire year created a lot of confusion for students and staff. Semester-by-semester scheduling allows for new functional pieces to work efficiently. It allows for more touch points between the student and their advisor. That was especially good for freshman for intentional contact with their advisor. Otherwise, they’d be unlikely to see their advisor for their first six months at college,” says Wichrowski.

For seniors concerned about the scheduling change, Wichrowski says, “We had to work out a lot of things when making the transition to using a new program. The timing [caused] the spring schedule to end up being delayed. In the future, this will not continue to happen. In fact, before the fall semester, you’ll know what is offered in the spring.”

According to Wichrowski, the Registrar’s Office is always working closely with students to make sure they work out the details and receive the courses needed to graduate on time.

New features provided by Colleague include increased student interaction with the process of registration and the ability to print unofficial transcripts. Future plans to add the degree audit for students to access through student planning and to allow instructors to give permission online are in the works.

Wichrowski says, “Overall, we recognize that it’s a big change. However, it’s pretty common throughout higher education to do scheduling in a semester-by-semester format.”

Michael is a Junior at Eastern Nazarene College, majoring in Communication Arts and minoring in Psychology. This is his second semester working with the Veritas, and he also writes for a basketball blog called FadawayWorld.org.